“Get Over it!”

So, this past weekend, we decided to just “Get Over It.”  We ran the Cooper River Bridge 10k Run in Charleston.  I walked this race years and years ago with some of my family but wanted to do it again.  After years of trying to do it and it never working out in our schedules, we finally made it happen!  We even dragged my mom, aunt, and cousin along with us.

We stayed at my parent’s house in Georgetown, which is about an hour from the start line of the race, so we left the house at o-dark-thirty to make it there in time.  No, seriously, this was the start line when we arrived.

One of my favorite memories of this race years ago was watching the Kenyans run the race.  This year, because they put you in different waves depending on your time, and because my time is obviously nowhere near theirs, I didn’t get to see them start.  Huge bummer.  The winner of the race finished in 29 minutes, so he was finishing just as I was starting.

Being the third largest 10K in the country with close to 40,000 people, the race was so stinkin’ fun…they had bands all along the way (seriously – all along the way – from the corral where we waited to start to the top of the bridge to the finish line), people on the side waving and cheering you on, and a costume contest for the participants (everything from bananas to superheros to teenage mutant ninja turtles).  I tried to snap a picture of these dudes dressed as Batman and Spiderman, but they turned around just as I snapped the picture and I didn’t want to stop to get a picture.  Enjoy the lopsided version instead.

According to the weather, we thought it was going to pour rain on us the entire time, like even maybe thunder and lightening.  Praise God, it just sprinkled at the beginning while we were waiting to start, and then it majorly cleared up.  At the bottom of the bridge, the sun was bearing down and it was HOT!

I completed the race in 1 hour and 3 minutes, which was an average pace of 10:16 per mile.  I wanted to be under 10 minutes per mile, but that bridge kicked my tail and I knew while running that I had to kick it into gear to get that time, and I just couldn’t.  So, I ended up with a little over an hour.  I had already heard from others that you couldn’t just focus on your time with this race, because there are so many people that it makes it really hard to run for a good time.  So I was prepared for my time not being as good as I wanted.

And, as I thought back, though, I was very pleased with myself.  Just last June, I ran my first 10k and finished at an average pace of close to 12 minutes per mile.  I told Ed then, “If I am going to keep this running thing going, I have to get faster – I don’t want to be the last person and I am not happy with that time.”  So, considering that was just last June, and I have dropped my time considerably, I am very, very pleased.  I will say that though the race seemed like it would be easy other than the bridge, it wasn’t super easy and I am proud of myself for pushing my body through it.

I am even prouder of my mom, aunt, and cousin for doing it with us and accomplishing a feat as well – even walking/running 6 miles is challenging!  And did I mention Ed?  Uh, he seriously rocked it.  Let me brag on him a little – he finished in 48 minutes and 54 seconds – thats a pace of 7:52 per mile.  He only finished 19 minutes behind the top guy and only had 1000ish people finish ahead of him (out of close to 36,000).  He wanted to finish it in 45 minutes, but in my mind, he blew that race out of the water. Great job babe!

The best part of the race, other than doing it with family and having fun? The food at the end – seriously, everything from muffins to fruit to bagels to cake to doughnuts to brats to pizza.  And man, those brats were unreal.  Johnsonville Brats pulled a huge truck that looked like a semi to the race – the whole back was a grill that opened where they cooked the brats.  Those things were delicious.  I may have had multiples 🙂

Thank you to Dad and Michelle for watching our kiddos, to my mom, aunt, and cousin for doing it with us, and to my hubby for pushing me and encouraging me that I could get my time down and be a runner 🙂

 

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